Presenter(s)

Among land degradation processes, soil erosion constitutes a major threat to sustainable crop production in the South-south ecology of Nigeria. The lands available for crop production are being competed for by population development, constructions and oil exploration. Farmers have no option than to move to marginal sloping lands whose resilience is limited. The sloping lands vulnerable to erosion have undergone cropping with no conservation practice, leading to severe erosion and depletion of gross soil resources pool and declined in crop yields. Thus required control measures that are cheaper and sustainable to protect the sloppy lands from erosion and enhance productivity for the sustenance of this finite resource. A wide range of techniques are available to measure soil erosion, but an important consideration in the measuring techniques is the reliability and precision of the results obtained.Hence, the efficacy of vetiver grass strips (VGS) spacing on runoff, sediment and soil nutrients losses control under cassava cultivation was studied with the aim of: (i) evaluating the suitability of fractional erosion collecting devices under vetiver grass strips in humid tropics of Uyo, (ii) to assess the spacing effects of vetiver grass strips on nutrient losses, soil erodibility and cassava tuber yield, (iii) to determine the nutrient enrichment ratio and yield/soil loss ratio as influenced by vetiver grass strips and (iv) to assess the economic benefit of various VGS spacing over plot without vetiver.

Among land degradation processes, soil erosion constitutes a major threat to sustainable crop production in the South-south ecology of Nigeria. The lands available for crop production are being competed for by population development, constructions and oil exploration. Farmers have no option than to move to marginal sloping lands whose resilience is limited. The sloping lands vulnerable to erosion have undergone cropping with no conservation practice, leading to severe erosion and depletion of gross soil resources pool and declined in crop yields. Thus required control measures that are cheaper and sustainable to protect the sloppy lands from erosion and enhance productivity for the sustenance of this finite resource. A wide range of techniques are available to measure soil erosion, but an important consideration in the measuring techniques is the reliability and precision of the results obtained.Hence, the efficacy of vetiver grass strips (VGS) spacing on runoff, sediment and soil nutrients losses control under cassava cultivation was studied with the aim of: (i) evaluating the suitability of fractional erosion collecting devices under vetiver grass strips in humid tropics of Uyo, (ii) to assess the spacing effects of vetiver grass strips on nutrient losses, soil erodibility and cassava tuber yield, (iii) to determine the nutrient enrichment ratio and yield/soil loss ratio as influenced by vetiver grass strips and (iv) to assess the economic benefit of various VGS spacing over plot without vetiver.